Face to Face
Earnest Maxwell
Strategic Planning Director

Earnest Maxwell is an 18-year energy and petrochemical industry veteran who moved from Houston, TX, to become Alyeska’s engineering manager for the pipeline in 1999. He was promoted to Strategic Planning Director in 2001 and is responsible for directing companywide strategic planning initiatives.

Q: What is strategic planning?

A: Strategic planning is the process of aligning resources with strategic objectives and vision. A strategic plan is basically a road map to the future. The Trans Alaska Pipeline System (TAPS) owner companies and managers set strategic objectives that identify where they want the company to go. Strategic planning outlines the route for getting there.

Alyeska now follows a 10-year rolling plan that is updated annually. The organization has responded well to the planning process. Our plan is becoming more insightful and useful every year as a tool for helping managers better run their individual pieces of the business. The current plan encompasses everything Alyeska does, from forecasting budgets and staffing levels to anticipating major projects and maintenance activities.

The real value of strategic planning is that it discourages reactive management. It outlines Alyeska’s best thinking about how the company’s future should look and then guides workers to fit their individual projects and activities into that picture. When unexpected or unavoidable events happen they are managed without taking the entire organization permanently off course.


Q: How does strategic reconfiguration relate to Alyeska’s long-range plan?

A: Pipeline strategic reconfiguration is the centerpiece of our long-range plan. If approved it would be the biggest discretionary investment in TAPS since construction. Its goal is to update TAPS’ decades-old equipment and to improve efficiency without compromising reliability.

TAPS is already extremely reliable. Strategic reconfiguration seeks to increase efficiency by doing such things as automating operations and providing more remote control and diagnostics capabilities. The new pipeline equipment will be highly standardized to improve maintenance efficiency.

Q: How do you know if the strategic plan is working?

A: The plan is working when we can remove strategic objectives from our list because they have either been accomplished or rendered obsolete by changing conditions. We also benchmark TAPS performance against its peer group of other U.S. pipelines. TAPS has always ranked among the top environmental performers. Its safety record has improved significantly, and operating costs are a consistent challenge that worsens with declining pipeline throughput and aging equipment. Pipeline reconfiguration should significantly improve operations and business efficiency, which will boost overall company cost performance.